State Bus Safety Guidelines Recommended by NHTSA

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) takes bus safety extremely seriously and has passed a new seat belt rule for large commercial buses that will take effect later this year. While this new mandate does not affect school bus seat belt regulations, NHTSA strongly encourages every state to rethink their seat belt policy to include mandatory restraints on school buses.

In addition to seat belt requirements, NHTSA is attempting to build stronger awareness for bus safety throughout the country—with a specific focus on school buses—by making safety recommendations to state governments. These recommendations include increased safety campaigns that concentrate on the following:

Drop-off zone dangers. Many school bus injuries occur when drivers fail to see children and passengers as they’re getting on and off the bus. Increased awareness for drivers, including bus drivers, to check the loading and drop-off zones is crucial for proper bus safety

Distracted driving. The size of a bus can cause large blind spot areas for both bus driver and fellow drivers. Talking on the phone, texting, and a host of other distractions make these blind spots even more treacherous for passengers. This is why a stronger state commitment to stop distracted driving is needed to help limit bus accidents.

Education. Education and awareness are always important aspects of driving safety. NHTSA is upping their efforts by updating educational resources and materials on their bus safety page to include new information for parents, kids, and drivers on a host of safety issues. Meanwhile, individual states need to up their game and start distributing their own resources and materials to their children and drivers.

Research. More useful data and bus crash analysis is needed to explore cause and effect of bus collisions, as well as develop new safety measures. New research can teach each state more on how factors such as speed, ignorance, negligence, and distractions put buses at risk for causing and suffering accidents.

After helping many victims of bus accidents over the past 20 years, our team of experienced injury lawyers knows the importance of bus safety firsthand. This is why we encourage you to not only absorb the above information, but to also share it with your friends, family, and government via Facebook, Twitter, and email.